Bee Eee Who?

You know, you hang out here for a time and you might forget my job isn't posting silly videos, trailers for upcoming movies, and my little attempts at writin'. Until I get my big break and land a job as a staff writer on The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, I'm still a software engineer.

Once upon a time, I used to write real software. Now, in the Valley of the Old, not so much. In fact, I've been spending the last day or two in a PHP environment. You can't get much further from real software than PHP. What an abortion of a language and deployment platform that is. But back in the day, I wrote the real stuff. And I cut my teeth at WebLogic, back when it was Bob and Paul running the show and purple shirts were a job requirement.

Considering I didn't stay around long, I still made a pretty penny when BEA bought WL. Then I watched from afar as everyone fought to make it to full vesting before abandoning ship.

The Oracle/BEA deal is closed and Oracle's announced the products that survive and their branding. And here's Bob's take:

With this widely expected move crowning WebLogic Application Server as Oracle’s go-forward appserver product, while “continuing to support” (shorthand for “silently kill”; see “PeopleSoft” and “Seibel”) every other revenue-generating product, Oracle tells us what we already knew from its last 8 years of near-stagnant revenue numbers : BEA couldn’t develop a product from scratch to save its life (literally).

FNSW: The Certificant

(Scott Johnson sits at his desk. Ivo Princip enters the office, wearing a suit and carrying his resume. He crosses, shakes Scott's hand, and sits opposite.)

SCOTT
Nice to meet you, Mr. Princip. I'm Scott. May I call you Ivo?

IVO
No.

SCOTT
O--kay...why don't you tell me a little about yourself.

IVO
Did you not read my resume?

SCOTT
I did, but I was hoping maybe you could maybe elaborate, go into a little detail about some of your experience, tell me why you think you'd be a good fit for this position.

IVO
You are hiring for engineer, yes? I am engineer.

SCOTT
O--kay. Let's start with a few questions, then. I see you've got your masters, that's good. But you've only got one year of experience --

IVO
-- I am certified.

SCOTT
What now?

IVO
I have MCSE, CNA, CNE, SCJP --

SCOTT
-- That's great, too. How about a couple of quick tech questions? Let me get a feel for your level. Can you explain polymorphism to me?

IVO
Polymorphism. No.

SCOTT
Nothing? Maybe you want to try talking through it, see if you can't give me a few of its traits?

IVO
No.

SCOTT
Can you tell me why you would use an abstract class?

IVO
No.

SCOTT
Define inheritance?

IVO
Inheritance?
...No.

SCOTT
Ivo --

IVO
-- Mr. Princip.

SCOTT
Mr. Princip. It says here that you're an expert in object oriented programming.

IVO
Object oriented programming. Yes. I am certified.

SCOTT
Can you define that for me?

IVO
Object oriented programming?

SCOTT
Please.

IVO
No.

SCOTT
Alright. Let's step back a bit, then. I see here under this technology section you've also got Photoshop listed. You certainly wouldn't be doing any of that here, but while I was working my way through college I actually worked in a graphics shop. So why don't you tell me how you'd use an alpha channel?

IVO
Alpha channel?

SCOTT
Yes.

IVO
That is...there are channels...many of them...this is the first. It is first channel.

SCOTT
O--kay. Let's jump back over to programming for a minute. Can you give me an example of a recursive algor --

IVO
-- May I ask question first?

SCOTT
Sure.

IVO
Are you certified?

SCOTT
Me? No. I don't have any certifications. It's never come up. I really only have time for the occasional conference or seminar and haven't had call to get certified.

IVO
Then how can you be expected to ask me question? Is like...is like student, asking teacher, no? I am certified, but you are not. It make no sense, yes?

SCOTT
Excuse me??

IVO
How can I...to explain, be clear, to you? You are member of team, yes? Maybe I speak with someone more senior. Your manager is certified?

SCOTT
I'm the team lead.

IVO
So, is team of junior engineer.

SCOTT
We get by. Well Ivo --

IVO
-- Mr. Princip.

SCOTT
Mr. Princip. It's been interesting meeting you. I wish you luck in your job search.

(Ivo sits for a minute, then gets the hint and leaves.)

BLACKOUT

LIGHTS UP

(Scott sits at his desk. The door opens and Steve Kramer enters.)

SCOTT
Boss. What's up?

STEVE
Scott, you know you've been trying to get some help on the team, well, I've got it fixed. I just interviewed a rockstar of an engineer.

SCOTT
That's great! Do you want me to talk to him?

STEVE
No need. Already hired him. Whipsmart, and has certifications out the ass. Hell of an engineer. Ivo Princip. You'll be reporting to him starting Monday.

BLACKOUT

Netflix drops streaming restrictions

You know what I haven't tried yet? Even once? Streaming a movie from Netflix. My in-house wireless connection is a trifle shaky, so I limit my streaming in the house to porn. That way, if it jitters and pauses it seems like I'm getting a show along with the show.

But maybe I will try streaming a movie from Netflix at some point, seeing as they're dropping their restrictions.

Until now, Netflix restricted how long its more than 7 million subscribers could use the streaming service each month, based on how much they pay to rent DVDs.

For instance, under a popular plan that charges $16.99 per month to rent up to three DVDs at a time, Netflix customers could watch as many as 17 hours of entertainment each month on the streaming service, dubbed "Watch Instantly."

With Monday's change, virtually all Netflix subscribers will be able to stream as many movies and TV shows as they want from a library containing more than 6,000 titles. There will be no additional charge for the unlimited access.

For *really* long orgasms...

Be sure to use silicon nanowires!

The new version, developed through research led by Yi Cui, assistant professor of materials science and engineering, produces 10 times the amount of electricity of existing lithium-ion, known as Li-ion, batteries. A laptop that now runs on battery for two hours could operate for 20 hours, a boon to ocean-hopping business travelers.

That's right guys and gals, a ten-fold improvement in battery life! Also, increased durability and longevity of the batteries themselves of course, due to the stable nature of the nanotubes.

ID Testing, redux

For those of you who've never looked at the GData api for Blogger, I envy you. It is a poorly documented beyatch. Hence, all the fits and starts here with comments on, comments off, comments disappearing, etc. Jon Fox over at ID is probably going to end up institutionalized by the time he finally makes sense of it.

Today we're back to my regular ID account, as opposed to the test account I'm using for import tests. Older ID comments are currently gone, gone, gone, but they might reappear at some point in the next day or two (no telling) if Jon does a restore for me. I'll probably bounce back and forth a few more times, though I might hold off until the weekend to do so. Haven't decided.

What that means is...comment if you want, but it might again disappear into the ether.

That is all.

ID comments shifted

Hey all, on the off chance you take a look at an old post to see what comments might have accrued, I have to warn you that we've had a little problem here at Acme labs. Comments, in some cases, have shifted from the post with which they were originally associated to the post that came chronologically after. Uh, sorry. This doesn't appear to impact any new comments.

This is what makes beta testing software "fun"! :)

As much as it sucks, those guys at ID are fast and responsive, so hopefully it'll all be worked out by the time you read this (or sometime shortly thereafter.) And if not, well...I think the mobs of people who visit here regularly can deal with a small problem like this.

ID Invites for the Brave and the Bold

Y'all know I've been on-again off-again beta testing the Intense Debate comment system on the blog here. They're expanding the beta and I've got some invites. If you're interested, leave a comment and request an invite. Their software is improving pretty rapidly, so if it works smoothly for everyone and the few bigger problems I know of get ironed out I'll consider staying on it. (Conversely, beckylooo will continue to have problems with that old piece of crap, hand-me-down monstrosity they gave her at FOX and I'll go back to Blogger comments.)

ID does offer some nice advantages, if you're willing to suffer with the tribulations of beta software.

Running ID Beta for a few...

I'm going to run the ID beta for a day or three this week to see how it's doing. A quick comment from my few regulars as to whether you can comment or not would be awesome. Thanks.

(Yes. I know. If you can't comment you can't comment re: that fact. Send me an email, or hit another post that has old-style comments to let me know.)

Poker Cheats caught redhanded

Cheaters never prosper. Well, they do. They make a shitload of money. But eventually the truth will out. Not usually. But sometimes. When it's not a sitting government but rather an off-shore online poker site, the truth will out. Looks like some (extra, "accidental") data was crunched and cheaters were found on AbsolutePoker.

So the poker detectives turned their attention to this observer. They traced the observer’s IP address and account name to the same set of servers that host Absolute Poker, and also, apparently, to a particular individual named Scott Tom, who seems to be a part-owner of Absolute Poker! If all of this is correct, it shows exactly how the cheating would have transpired: an insider at the Web site had real-time access to all of the hole cards (it is not hard to believe that this capability would exist) and was relaying this information to an outside accomplice.

This is why online poker needs to be legalized and regulated in the US.

Startups belong in Silicon Valley, Movies in LA

Paul Graham of Y Combinator gave a talk in the UK that apparently rankled. All he'd done was state an obvious truth: "startups would do better if they moved to Silicon Valley." In this essay, Graham lays out some of the reasoning for moving to the startup hub, but mostly sticks with the investment aspect. It's easier to get money in the Valley than anywhere else, even the number two spot for startups in the world:

Boston investors will admit they're more conservative. Some want to believe this comes from the city's prudent Yankee character. But Occam's razor suggests the truth is less flattering. Boston investors are probably more conservative than Silicon Valley investors for the same reason Chicago investors are more conservative than Boston ones. They don't understand startups as well.

What Graham doesn't cover in great detail is the rest of the infrastructure that's missing in other locations. Anyone who's ever tried to hire a top-tier, cutting edge software engineer out in the hinterlands (and yes, I count the PHX metro area and its 4.5 million inhabitants as "hinterlands") knows that the pool is ridiculously shallow.

That's not the case in the SV/SF area. There, the pool is deep and the networks as dense as dendritic fibers in the corpus callosum. Add to that the networking guys, hardware guys, marketing experts, tech sales pros, lawyers, etc. who actually understand how startups and tech companies work, and you can easily see how building a startup in SV is the right thing to do.

When I read this, I was oddly reminded of a post from Jim Henshaw about Canadian TV. Apparently spurning the lessons of Hollywood, SV, and Detroit Nagoya, Canada is trying to spread out film production.

The concept of Regionalizing production may satisfy politicians who want to see their constituents tax dollars spent locally. But you can't build a viable film industry that way. In fact, it's a sure-fire recipe for making sure it never happens.

Imagine asking most of the production companies in Hollywood to relocate to Pismo Beach if they want their project green-lit. Consider what Woody Allen or Spike Lee's films would look like if they had to be shot in Newark. Take your life in your hands and tell Robert Rodriguez he's giving up Austin for Padre Island.

And maybe give some thought to the "suppliers" of the industry. The people who have no say in what gets conceived or made. They rent cameras, build props and costumes, or sustain state of the art post houses. Now imagine how their profit margins (which have always been thin) are impacted by having to serve customers who have no choice but to work in areas where such operations are not resident because they couldn't survive and everything has to be shipped in.

There's no mystery that I'm not a country mouse. I like cities. I wish I lived in one. These are some of the reasons why.
Paul Graham essay via Sam Pullara

Back to Blogger comments

I've decided to turn off ID comments for now. There are a lot of things I like about their system, but there are several aspects that I don't. First and foremost, unless and until they have broad adoption rates, the only major benefit the system provides is threaded comments. Some of the features that don't work without deep market penetration:

• Reputation. It seems simple and obvious that high reputation rates as measured by the community should equate to either high reliability or high relevance. During the beta, people are rarely taking advantage of the rating system to up- or down-vote ID members. That means frequency of commenting regardless of relevance/coherence is the determinant. If beta testers aren't voting, it's a near-certainty that late-adopters won't.
  
• As a follow-up point on reputation, the majority of ID beta sites/testers (at least those who comment frequently) have politics to the right of Rush. In that echo chamber of inanities, there's nowhere for me to comment without engaging in flame wars with the illuminutty. And again, because each comment posted increases reputation (unless the comment is voted down and see point 1 re: no voting) there's a very Freeper-feel to ID. It's unintentional, as technology has no bias, but still disconcerting to read a stream of moronic comments going by whenever I check ID's home page for activity.
• The beta is either still really limited, or the testers aren't hammering very much. That "stream of moronic comments" I mentioned is more a very slow drip.
• People don't want to sign up. Even my one or two semi-regular commenters here are reluctant (understandably) to sign up for YACS (yet another commenting system.) Who could blame them? I have more accounts, passwords, and ids spread about the web than a Mossad agent in the '70s. Without widespread adoption, no one is compelled to get an account. If people remain anonymous, they miss out on many of the features, sure, but they also negatively impact the community.

Beyond the problems associated with adoption rates, there are a few outstanding issues:

• Display gets wonky with deeply nested comments. This is a pretty big deal for a system that uses nesting of comments as one of its biggest selling features.
• The comment editor is pretty primitive. Formatting isn't supported yet (will be really soon, I suspect,) resizing of the edit pane isn't supported, and there's no comment preview.
• While I can delete comments on my blogs, I can't delete the comments I leave elsewhere. I understand the theory behind this, as it has to do with reputation, but with no comment preview, they really should provide comment deletion.

And finally, there is the biggest problem of all which can't be resolved: they run as an Ajax widget. That means: problems for those who have scripting off; problems for browsers with poor Javascript support; and problems like the one my new blogfriend had the other day. She can't comment from her work computer into ID. Somehow (I suspect she clicked the Blogger comment link before ID's Javascript had rewritten it) she once managed to get into the old-style Blogger comment system. Interesting. Also interesting that ID (correctly) does NOT insert itself on posts that have comments in the old system. What that means, however, is that I've got one post from past week with old-style comments while the rest use ID!

That also led me to realize that if a user had Javascript support turned off, or clicked the Blogger link before ID rewrote it, or if ID were down for a period of time, and then entered a comment in the underlying comment system, it would hide any ID comments that might already exist! That's a pretty big and scary hole for ID, and I don't believe there's an easy solution to it. At best, they build support for importing comments from the underlying systems into ID and do so either at timed intervals, or as recipients of comment notifications. Pretty rough.

Now, while it may seem as if I'm bashing this software, I'm not. I'm really impressed with how well it works, how much functionality it has, and how smoothly it operates on different browsers, OSs, and blogging platforms. These guys have done a great job and continue to do so. I will be keeping my account with them and commenting on other ID sites from time to time (more so if some sites that don't make me shake my head in disbelief and disgust come on line.)

And who knows? Maybe they'll get that market penetration they need to achieve a critical mass of users and I'll go back up with ID comments.

The devolution of the soft top

I've owned convertibles all my adult life. No tintops. My first was the first car I bought with my own money, a jellybean blue Geo Metro that I bought in '91.

Piece of crap? Tiny little engine? Sure. But it also weighed about as much as a Barbie Jeep so it was quick. Plus, the wee wheels and chassis arrangement made for a lithe, if slightly skittish car. You'd be amazed what you can do with something that small if you're fearless when driving.

I drove the Metro into the ground, putting about 85K miles on it in five years. As it was beginning its very rapid death spiral, I traded it in on the next convertible - a '96 Jeep Wrangler.

Now, the Jeep's a fun ride, but for someone who likes high speed and agility it's a bit of a challenge. Don't get me wrong, I used to bob and weave with her, but it just wasn't the same. And the top's a pain in the ass. The Metro's manual top I could put up or down at a stop light without getting out of the car. The Jeep...that took considerably longer. Still, it was a manual operation, so it wasn't going to break on me.

A few years and several Bay Area job hops later, my salary had gone up just a skoch. Time to trade in and trade up. So I satisfied my childhood dream of owning a Porsche by paying *way* over Blue Book for a slightly used Boxster.

Let me tell you, there are few cars that handle quite like a Boxster. It's quick - though not super fast - and with the mid-engine design it hugs the road like week-old roadkill. Did I mention the mid-engine design? Because of that, every repair costs an arm and a leg and takes an inordinate amount of time. Ever pay $1500 to replace a clutch? If you've owned a Boxster you have.^* Ever pay $2500 to replace a windshield? Alright, I didn't pay that thanks to glass coverage, but I could have. And the Boxster had the first power top I'd ever owned. A "clever" two-clutch design: one for the soft top; one for the hard cover. The wife and I got to know our mechanics really well, because that shitty, over-engineered design meant it was broken about every nine months.

Last year I got a chance to pick up one of my dream cars. An amazing deal on an '01 Esperante with only 7K miles on it. I jumped. Now, the Roadster is cooler, but the top on the Roadster is a snap-on affair reminiscent of the Jeep. The Esperante's got a nice power top to go with its sleek lines, high power, and great handling. Well, it has great handling now that we've replaced the shitty deep dish rims and low-profile tires with proper wheels and performance tires.

(That one's actually mine, unlike the other photos I culled from the web.)
Oh wait. Did I say a "nice power top"? My mistake. The Boxster should have prepared me. Last week, the top broke. A few days in the shop and it's been repaired. Well, that's what the mechanic says, but I know better. You see, you can't actually repair a power top. You can patch it so it keeps working for a little while, but it'll give out again. That's what they do. My $9K Metro with the manual top - the top that I could put up or down in thirty seconds including the top cover - that never broke. It also weighed a lot less because it didn't need hydraulics, or electrics, or gears. It was just a hinge mechanism with a canvas top and plastic rear window. Cheap, right-sized, and easy. The Esperante, like the Boxster and all other power soft tops is over-engineered. I believe they do that for old people. The wife thinks it's just for the congenitally lazy.

So now, I don't own a convertible. I own a car with a rattly cloth top. I picked the car up this afternoon with the top up, and up is where it'll stay until I sell it. The only way I'll put it down again is if we can get the good folks at Panoz to retrofit the top and make it a manual. Since it's highly unlikely they'll do so, the car will soon be someone else's problem and I'll be looking for a manual top. Of course, since the only new car on the market with a manual top is the Wrangler...and since they've ruined the Wrangler by giving it a suspension built for soccer moms...I'll definitely be forced to go used. And that really pisses me off.

Manual tops are pretty much extinct, as manual transmissions will be within a decade. Idiots.

Remember: technological advancement to solve a problem that doesn't exist, and is prone to failure, is no advancement at all.

---

^* No, I didn't burn it out. The previous owner had ridden it.

The cell tower is next to the baobab tree

So John August had "four bars in villages without electricity, roads, or running water". As if I needed proof that Scottsgrad is less civilized than Malawi.

Comment system beta test

Not because I get much in the way of comments (unless I pick on day laborers or Tim Burton) but because I'm a pretty compulsive beta tester, I installed a new comment system from Intense Debate. I haven't been able to import old comments over, so right now only posts with no extant comments on them will be using the new system.

Please help out a startup and try it out when you've got a chance. I'm not 100% sure I'll stick with it, but if it doesn't blow shrapnel all over the place and seems to work well I'll probably keep it around at least for a little while. If you do decide to leave any comments on this post or any others and use the new system, please indicate whether you like or dislike it. If you dislike it or have problems/feature requests, be specific. The Intense Debate guys will want that feedback.

iPhone DOS Attack

I'd not heard of this little kerfuffle with Duke's wireless network until this evening...about 10 minutes after the new boss (nothing like the old boss) had left the building with her shiny new iPhone. Those poor saps running on our wireless router were down for the count. That's the third or fourth time this week it's happened...right around the time bosslady comes or goes.

Wow. As if my daily Mac experiences weren't enough to make me wish ill on Steve Jobs. This guy doesn't just make Gates look good, he makes Ballmer look good. Oh yeah, but his toys are so pretty. They work like crap, but they're pretty.

Apple: The runway model of computers.

By the way: please remind me to get a job as a "principal analyst" at InStat like David Chamberlain. He seems to understand how networks well about as the ad wizards at Apple.

"How [could] those [150 iPhones] overwhelm a network when there are probably hundreds of students downloading pirated movies from BitTorrent every night?" he said. "Just because iPhones were added recently does not mean they were responsible for the network problems. It's just something that coincidentally happened a short time before the network troubles."

My god, I just realized...if this is really a problem and not misanalysis from the Dukies...wireless networks networks nationwide are in danger! Tattoo parlors, Starbucks, BERET SHOPS! The humanity!

Update: Thanks to SteveC for forwarding me this link from Duke. Apparently it's not the iPhones. I still think they're clunky status symbols. And this from a guy who bought a RAZR when it was first available.

Why Steve Jobs is a bigger D-Bag than Bill Gates

Funny, all those Java troubles between Microsoft and Sun, and yet I never once had to uninstall a version of Java after installing a Windows update. Not only that, but the process messed up my Java 5 installation which I just had to update. Add to that the fact that the tools at Apple haven't managed to get a production Java 6 out yet, a year after it was available on every other OS, while Sun's got Java 7 ready for early access.

I'm really trying hard not to just run Parallels and do all my development (and really, everything else) in Windows. There are a few things I like about the Mac, but it is starting to piss me off.

But I'm super happy my Quicktime installation got updated. I mean, I must run Quicktime at least once a...never. Fucking Macs.

Take a walk on the reconstructed three-dimensional space side

You know, when they're not trying to take over the world, or shove crappy OS and office suite upgrades down our throats, those clever chappies at Microsloth can do some really interesting things. At least their small, independent groups like Live Labs can. Check out Photosynth, maybe the coolest new piece of software I've seen in a couple of years.

Photosynth is an amazing new technology from Microsoft Live Labs that will change forever the way you think about digital photos.

Our software takes a large collection of photos of a place or an object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed three-dimensional space.

With Photosynth you can:

• Walk or fly through a scene to see photos from any angle.
• Seamlessly zoom in or out of a photo whether it's megapixels or gigapixels in size.
• See where pictures were taken in relation to one another.
• Find similar photos to the one you're currently viewing.
• Send a collection - or a particular view of one - to a friend.

Blogger comment workaround

There's a Blogger error with what appears to be URL rewriting/redirecting right now that's affecting some blogs (not all) where users can't get to comments. I've stopped it from popping into a new window for now to make the workaround easy. Just change the host from "www" to "www2" on the page that fails and you'll be able to post.

I assume this will be resolved anon.

Expecting Managementations

I rolled into the office this morning at just past 5:30. That's depressing on many, many levels of course: I'm not currently sitting in my seat at AWA watching the Suns-Spurs game, but watching at home; I'm thoroughly exhausted and should be calling it a night any minute now (likely before 10;) and obviously, I was in so early that "lunch" was breakfast at 9am.

Why, one may wonder - knowing how uncritical my current job is and how few and rare are our deadlines - did I make such an early day of it? Outsourced labor.

We had a mid-level engineer who worked on one project for one year before ditching. While he needs a lot of seasoning before he'll be senior, he's responsible enough to have finished his project. Finished it, then hit the door. The only thing that happened faster than him bolting was the company shelving his work, all so we could pay money to another company to develop the same thing for us.

Again, I hear the cries of "why"? Those cries aren't coming from software professionals, however. We know better. And for those of you at software companies...you should try out doing in-house IT for a tech-wary, tech-phobic company sometime. That's a whole other level of pain.

The best way to describe the experience of being a software engineer at any company not run by other engineers is to compare it to working in Hollywood. Writer writes, actor acts, director directs. Then, there's the development execs and produers. They "give notes". They have a cousin who's "just super talented and should get an audition". They focus group and do market analysis. In other words, they're parasites riding on the backs of the talent, who muck with the product, and blame the creators when it all goes awry.¹

In our case, it was a cousin (actually, a friend.)

So I get to the office at 5:30 to run one of the final steps required to go live (because they weren't ready on Wednesday when they were scheduled to be.) I had worried that it would take a few hours, since I was estimating 10-15 seconds for each call to their webservice. In fact, the processing was done in less than five minutes! Woo-hoo! Three hours later, after I'd finally finished analyzing the errors (about 10 percent of the data load failed, living up to my usual quality guarantee of Five Eights Reliability²) we started the conversation with the vendor to figure out what problems they were having.

Besides the fact that they didn't understand the requirements, failed to meet their deadlines, and continue to have a ton of problems, it's going great!

So far, nothing has surprised me. We knew they'd blow their deadline, knew they weren't clear on the requirements, and knew they weren't going to be able to support our data. By "we", of course I mean IT, not management. If these people were in LA, they'd just be asking me to "raise the stakes" and "make Jenna more likable". It could be worse. They could be my old boss Tim. I don't have the energy to open that can of worms. I'll just close with this simulated tasklist from that job:

• Go to store; get milk
• Go to moon; get rocks
• Eat lunch
• Solve world hunger

Note: I've thought about what I've written here - stream of consciousness fluff - and I think there's a decent essay comparing software to film/telly craft that could be written. If I have some time and energy this weekend (and I'm not busy with more interesting/fun writing) I might expand and expound. If anyone has any thoughts, comments, suggestions, or criticisms of the comparison, please comment here or email them to me. I know that this posting isn't super-coherent or cohesive, so criticisms like that aren't strictly necessary, thank you Mr. Guitar Man.

---

¹ For those who know where my passion lies (and how much I hate software) you might find it odd that I want a job in an industry where I'd have to deal with such similar problems. I can only conclude that I'm so accustomed to the crap associated with my job that I'd miss it if I didn't have management getting in the way of quality.
² I should trademark that phrase before Steve Ballmer appropriates it to describe Vista.

Bite My Shiny, Metal Ass!

And alcohol! Lots and lots of alcohol!

Robots could one day demand the same citizen's rights as humans, according to a study by the British government.

If granted, countries would be obliged to provide social benefits including housing and even "robo-healthcare", the report says.

Someone at the Institute for the Future's playing a joke on the Brits, methinks.